ESS vs. AVB, EQR, MAA, SUI, UDR, ELS, CPT, AIV, UMH, and WELL
Should you be buying Essex Property Trust stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Essex Property Trust include AvalonBay Communities (AVB), Equity Residential (EQR), Mid-America Apartment Communities (MAA), Sun Communities (SUI), UDR (UDR), Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS), Camden Property Trust (CPT), Apartment Investment and Management (AIV), UMH Properties (UMH), and Welltower (WELL). These companies are all part of the "real estate investment trusts" industry.
AvalonBay Communities (NYSE:AVB) and Essex Property Trust (NYSE:ESS) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, valuation, media sentiment, analyst recommendations, community ranking, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.
92.6% of AvalonBay Communities shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.5% of Essex Property Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of AvalonBay Communities shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.8% of Essex Property Trust shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
AvalonBay Communities has a net margin of 34.05% compared to AvalonBay Communities' net margin of 31.18%. AvalonBay Communities' return on equity of 9.22% beat Essex Property Trust's return on equity.
AvalonBay Communities has a beta of 0.9, meaning that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Essex Property Trust has a beta of 0.79, meaning that its share price is 21% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Essex Property Trust received 50 more outperform votes than AvalonBay Communities when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 61.21% of users gave AvalonBay Communities an outperform vote while only 56.87% of users gave Essex Property Trust an outperform vote.
AvalonBay Communities currently has a consensus target price of $204.89, suggesting a potential upside of 6.34%. Essex Property Trust has a consensus target price of $257.33, suggesting a potential downside of 0.95%. Given Essex Property Trust's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe AvalonBay Communities is more favorable than Essex Property Trust.
AvalonBay Communities pays an annual dividend of $6.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Essex Property Trust pays an annual dividend of $9.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. AvalonBay Communities pays out 101.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Essex Property Trust pays out 119.8% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. AvalonBay Communities has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years and Essex Property Trust has raised its dividend for 30 consecutive years. Essex Property Trust is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
AvalonBay Communities has higher revenue and earnings than Essex Property Trust. AvalonBay Communities is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Essex Property Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Essex Property Trust had 1 more articles in the media than AvalonBay Communities. MarketBeat recorded 15 mentions for Essex Property Trust and 14 mentions for AvalonBay Communities. AvalonBay Communities' average media sentiment score of 1.20 beat Essex Property Trust's score of 1.04 indicating that Essex Property Trust is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
Essex Property Trust beats AvalonBay Communities on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding ESS and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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